Bill's late wife taught the corgi's how to disembark down the stairs. Picture with thanks to London City Airport

Bill's late wife taught the corgi's how to disembark down the stairs. Picture with thanks to London City Airport

When you are on your own and feeling under the weather, it is nice of neighbours and friends to help you. I know both a neighbour and myself have walked another neighbour’s dog when her various artificial joints play up. But it has been revealed recently that HM The Queen has been walking a Corgi and Bichon-Frise belonging to one of her retired gamekeepers since he became too ill to exercise them. Sadly, the retired gamekeeper, Bill Fenwick, passed away at the beginning of this year.

Bill had been a gamekeeper on the Sandringham Estate for over twenty years, and his wife Nancy was for a long-time Keeper of the Queen’s Corgis. They had retired to a grace and favour cottage in Windsor Great Park, before Nancy’s death in 2015. At the time, the Queen comforted Bill and his two sons and attended the funeral. For the last 2 years, she has been walking both dogs on a Sunday. The corgi is one that was bred from her own brood, which can trace their ancestry back to Susan; a corgi given to the then Princess Elizabeth on her eighteenth birthday.

Although the Queen stopped breeding the Pembroke Welsh Corgis, because she worried about tripping over the young pups, it is thought that she is considering taking the dogs in and looking after them herself. Though the couple had two sons, their circumstances mean they cannot take the dogs on. They are also both mature in dog terms, and so less of a hazard as Her Majesty has no doubt discovered over many a Sunday afternoon stroll.

Her Majesty had been very close to the couple, and it is sad that she has lost many close friends recently. Nancy had done a lot of training with all the corgi’s and one of the reasons why they had the house in Windsor Great Park was so she could train the corgis how to go up and down stairs, even when those stairs happen to be from an aircraft as shown above. With all the affection shown by the couple to the Queen’s corgis, should we really be surprised at the Queen returning the favour when it was needed so much?